Who: Grantaire What: Brooding, arting, destroying said art, etc When: Spanning between this and this Where: Grantaire's room Warnings: Talk of death and suicide. Angst. Depression. Self-hatred. Drinking. Lots of drinking. Status: Narrative | Complete
Grantaire didn't know why he was so bothered by the death of an actor. They were high above everyone else, untouchable. Marble. No, they were not high above everyone else, they were just put there by mere mortals who watched them for entertainment. Who analyzed their every last word to admire or jeer if they did not agree. To worship from afar while treating as though they were close friends based on interview snippets and their movies. No. Actors were just like the rest of them, only with money and fame and an eternal spotlight on them. They lied and joked and portrayed a version of themselves while keeping their true selves locked away in the privacy of their home and mind, grasping desperately for something to call their own when the world took and took and took and took.
Not that Grantaire was an actor.
But a man who had seemed so real to them, a man who went out of his way to make others laugh... he had succumbed to that which plagued any and took no prisoners, which could care less on fame or money or status. Bipolar. Depression. Alcohol. He hid behind laughs, was the uncle everyone had and he had killed himself.
What was there for a man like Grantaire when someone of such magnitude was able to fall so far, to struggle for so long and find sanctuary in the darkness of death at their own hand? The drunken artist would never attempt to claim any sort of comparison between himself and Robin Williams. It was laughable. He was a pitiful fool who couldn't hold down a job even if he wanted, who drank and sometimes managed to make something worth trying to sell with his art. But there were the similarities. The anchor of depression wrapped around him, a boulder her could never push up. Hiding that self-hatred behind jokes and self-deprivation. The cracks in the armor were sometimes seen, but never enough to worry.
It hit too close to home. It hit a chord within him and it scared him. Terrified him.
And so Grantaire had done the one thing he did best. Locked himself away in his room. He doubted Enjolras would notice. If anything he would be relieved that there was no disruption while he worked on his cases and school work. And as Grantaire didn't have the energy to even pluck at his guitar, it meant that Enjolras would be spared yet another distraction.
Drink.
Paint.
Pass out.
Drink.
Paint.
Pass out.
He wasn't paying attention to much. When he found energy he would go to his canvas, paint what came to mind. As if trying to paint out the pain and grief. He'd drink himself into a stupor just to get some damn sleep. Sometimes the Dreams came. Sometimes they didn't. When they did, he just made sure to drink even more until he blacked out. No way to dream then. No way to see his life was just as pathetic in the Dreams as it was in real life.
How long it went on, who could say. The days were a haze, blurring together and still all Grantaire did was paint, drink and pass out. Until one mistake. That was all it took. He didn't even know where he was going with the current painting, but it looked wrong and a rage filled him.
"This is shit!"
Nothing he did was good. None of it would sell. He was a failure. A disappointment. A waste. Every harsh word flung at him by his father, by others, Grantaire took out on the paintings, both finished and unfinished in his room. Slashing them apart until he collapsed to his knees in the middle of the room, his work destroyed by his own hand, just like everything else he ever tried to do. Fitting, really. It was all he would ever be good at. Destroying himself.